For this month’s update we have long awaited Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann! This is a fondly remembered mecha show that became a phenomenon when it first released in 2007 being picked up by a large swath of the anime blogging community and soaring in popularity on various image message boards and forums being enjoyed by mecha fans and general viewers alike, it was later picked up for US Broadcast in 2008.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (TTGL) was created by the anime studio Gainax, for most overseas fans their most notable production at this point was Neon Genesis Evangelion, TTGL was a big hit and produced a series of movies as well as some animated shorts called “Parallel Works” which took the cast of TTGL and placed them in difference universes with the fantasy-style knights or the spiral king being the most memorable shorts.
The series was remarkably popular and a large number of staff on the project would then go on to create their own company called Studio Trigger. Trigger has produced shows like SSSS.Gridman as well as the recent Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
TTGL itself can be seen as a love letter and a homage to previous mecha shows. Homages to Gainax’s previous mecha entry Gunbuster are well known to most fans but there are many references to previous Super Robot shows such as acquiring a set of jet wings later in the series resembling the Jet Scrander from Mazinger, uses the sunglasses as a boomerang ala Great Mazinger.
Having dual faces reminiscent of Gaiking or the more recent Braves series plus the over the top action, never giving up, and the unlimited green power source based on human fighting spirit seen in The King of Braves GaoGaiGar.
One Super Robot Series that Gurren Lagann drew most heavily from is Getter Robo. Getter Robo, following hot on the heels of Mazinger Z, was the first combining Super Robot, and combining (Gattai!) is rather quintessential to Gurren Lagann as well. We have a where to start post on Getter Robo here.
Furthermore there are a number of parallels with Getter Rays and Spiral Energy, and an outside alien force trying to suppress mankind because they are afraid of their potential, along with massive scale final robots with the Getter Emperor large enough to eat planets and the TTGL large enough to throw galaxies.
It’s also not the first time Gainax has referenced Getter Robo, Gunbuster’s infamous pose which is echoed in TTGL was originally shown in Getter Robo G manga, and Gunbuster had a number of scrapped weapons that looked remarkably like Getter Axes while it’s face and beam are quite similar to Getter Dragon and the Getter Emperor.
Some have theorized that Gurren Lagann can be considered a pseudo sequel to Getter Robo whose story never finished when its creator passed away. In Getter Robo the story ended around the plot point of “what could be trapping the Getter Emperor inside the solar system” and the answer to that in the Gurren Lagann universe is the Anti-Spirals.
Most important of all is the involvement of Kazuki Nakashima the head writer for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Allow me to paraphrase and summarize an excellent analysis some anonymous soul once offered to me in a Getter thread.
‘Nakashima was the editor for Ken Ishikawa who created Getter Robo and is self-described as his number one fan. Ken’ichi Ishikawa had died suddenly and without warning, Nakashima was greatly impacted by this and was called on to speak at Ishikawa’s funeral. Getter Robo which the two had worked closely on, and invented combining robots, would never be complete.
Now look at the themes of TTGL. It is about a man experiencing the sudden death of the person he most admired, and trying to continue his legacy but realizing he can’t just be a copy of him and sometimes will have to do things his own way. That friend who came up with the idea of combining robots together (Simon let’s Gattai!). That friend whose name starts with a K and is three syllables.
Kamina is Ishikawa himself. Ishikawa as Nakashima saw him.’
It’s a very moving analysis and one I had never considered before, but it seems rather obvious in retrospect. As a fan of Getter Robo it’s given me a newfound appreciation for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and the people who worked on it, especially Kazuki Nakashima whose work I would consider a wonderful tribute and farewell to Ken Ishikawa.
You can find the new mecha unit profiles for Gurren Lagann and King Kittan as well as Getter Robo G on the MechaStellar downloads page. Next month will be a continuation for TTGL and we will have units for the other Gunmen and Dai-Gurren battleship. We will cover the post timeskip mecha when we start releasing Tier 3 units for other series. This month we’ll also post a guide for Gurren Lagann minis and figures to use on the tabletop as well as two battle reports featuring Gurren Lagann. Hope you all enjoyed reading and best of luck on your next tabletop mecha game.
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